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Sunday, February 16th
HelloFresh boasts that they are the most popular meal kit company in the world. In 2023 alone, they delivered 1 billion meals, which is quite the feat. The company takes a customer-centric approach to their business and provides an array of food solutions by sending meal kits, ready-to-eat meals, seafood and meat delivery, and even premium pet food right to your house. There are quite a few companies under the HelloFresh umbrella including Green Chef, EveryPlate, Chefs Plate, Factor, Youfoodz, The Pets Table, and Good Chop.
Set basic preferences
To get started with HelloFresh, you'll need to provide your zip code. As long as you live in the contiguous United States, HelloFresh can get food to your door. Then you'll choose from some really basic preferences to help align the weekly menu to your taste. These include:
These choices aren't specific enough for people with serious allergies or intolerances to dairy, gluten, nuts, or eggs. But there is enough variety on the weekly menu for you to be able to avoid these things when you are choosing your dishes.
Starting at $9.99/serving
Next, you'll customize your plan to fit the number of people you're planning to feed. HelloFresh has options for 2, 4, or 6 servings in a kit. The options for the number of meals delivered are 2, 3, 4, 5, or 6. Like many other companies, HelloFresh's pricing scale favors people ordering more meals for more people. For instance, if you're ordering 2 meals for 2 people, the price per serving is $11.49. But when you up this to 3, 4, 5, or 6 meals, the serving price drops to $9.99. Regardless of how many meals you order, if you are buying for families of 4 or 6, each serving is $9.99. Shipping for each box is $10.99.
Deals on first order
You'll get $31 off your first box at HelloFresh no matter how much or how little you order. This means you could spend as little as $25.95 and get 2 meals for 2 people. Or even 6 meals for 2 people comes in under $100 at $99.87. This is a great way to feel better about giving HelloFresh a trial run.
Choose your favorites
After checkout you can go through the menu of over 30 recipes and select the ones you want for you and your family. The week we were ordering had dishes like cheesy spinach, tomato & feta paninis, sweet chili pork & cabbage stir fry, buffalo cauliflower tacos, onion crunch chicken, mango salsa pork tacos, backyard grill bourbon steaks, and others. You could always preview what's on next week's menu as well so you can plan ahead. With these comes FDA nutrition information and ingredients for each recipe, so you can browse to make sure it doesn't contain anything you dislike or can't eat.
Assemble your meal with pre-portioned ingredients
HelloFresh specializes in meal kits. That means you'll get an instruction card with your meal and pre-portioned ingredients to make something delicious. This eliminates a lot of prep work and cleanup on your part, but you'll still be putting together your meal each time. This usually takes about 30 minutes from start to finish.
Chilled ingredients at your doorstep
Your meal kit will come in a box with insulated liners and cooling gel packs to ensure optimal freshness during transit. The amount and type of gel packs may be adjusted based on different climates and seasons. Everything inside should be unpacked and refrigerated immediately.
Easily adjust your scheduled meals
Customers can skip, pause, or cancel their subscription to HelloFresh at any time. As long as you make changes before the weekly cutoff to stop your next order, you won't be charged again.
Commitment to the planet
HelloFresh has a commitment to being sustainable for the planet with an innovative supply chain. They focus on sourcing local ingredients as well as reducing food waste and carbon emissions. You can read all about their ingredient sourcing from a report they published in 2022. It outlines steps they've taken in the U.S. and other countries to strictly choose food suppliers, stick with in-season vegetables, buy misshapen produce that wouldn't be available for normal retail, commit to animal welfare, and more. Some of their ingredients are organic, but not all. The company says their focus is more on helping customers have a positive experience in the kitchen and take basic necessary steps to add more fruits and vegetables into their everyday lives.
Tens of thousands of reviews
The Better Business Bureau gives HelloFresh an "A+” rating. There are tens of thousands of people who have written articles, left comments, and posted reviews about their experience with this company. We liked reading that HelloFresh has been a genuine help for people wanting to learn a new style of cooking. The recipes are broad and flavorful, the whole process is convenient, and the portions are good. Here and there we found complaints about customer service, but nothing that was overly concerning.
Delicious and fun
We are big fans of HelloFresh. When we've used it in the past, we've loved the recipes so much that we wanted to make them over and over again. The company does a good job of quickly and accurately making deliveries to keep things fresh. There are enough meal choices that people with different dietary needs should be able to find dishes that they are comfortable with. Pricing is competitive and we like that HelloFresh makes efforts to source local, high-quality ingredients and monitor their effects on the environment. HelloFresh is a fun, delicious choice for prepared meals, so they've earned one of our top ratings.
There are so many reasons you might find a prepared meal delivery service a huge benefit to your life. Maybe you're facing an illness or had a major life event that has left you feeling like cooking is the last thing you want to do. Or maybe you're trying to eat healthier, but you love the convenience of eating out and want to bridge the gap.
Prepared meals are the perfect solution for busy parents who still want the benefit of home cooked meals around the table with their family or for those who just can't get the hang of cooking and have decided they're sick of burning all their food (we aren't judging!). No matter your situation or reasons, prepared meals are a modern convenience that should be taken advantage of.
If you're concerned about a prepared meal delivery service because you're a picky eater, have allergies or serious food intolerances, fear not. One reason prepared meals have become so popular is because they can cater to anyone's preferences and needs. If you need to avoid gluten, dairy, eggs, nuts, or any other specific ingredient, many companies will let you specify this and will adjust your meal options accordingly. You can choose vegetarian meals, paleo meals, calorie-conscious meals, or mostly order meals from your favorite cuisine.
Depending on the prepared meal service, some meal selections may cost more than others. If you want gourmet meals that give you a high-end restaurant experience for your taste buds at home, you might pay a bit more (worth it!) but if you're on a budget, there are still mouth-watering, nutritious options that shouldn't stretch the amount of money you've allotted yourself for meals. Whether or not the ingredients in your prepared meal are organic, locally sourced, or come with other specialty labels may affect the overall cost, so pay attention to this as well.
Some companies will deliver meals to your door that are practically ready to open up and eat on the spot, while others require a little prep on your part. Even the meals you have to assemble yourself are made to be as simple as can be. Ingredients come perfectly measured out with step-by-step instructions that can give confidence to even the most inept home chef. Useful tip: you could save the instructions and ingredient information if you want to make the meal again in the future and give it a go on your own!
We've made ourselves very hungry with all the research we've done about the top prepared meal services available to customers. In the end, we've narrowed down a few things that are important to look at when you're considering signing up with one of these companies:
To give you the best, most convenient experience with ordering prepared meals, the experts at Top Consumer Reviews have pored over all the details of popular companies available to you. We hope this information helps you find simple, enjoyable meals that you'll look forward to eating every day.
Select any 2 Prepared Meals to compare them head to head